The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1887-09-08
'eEET ALMAGE'S SERMON.
a Homily on Insurance, Life, Fire
and Eternal.
The Christian Principles Involved-Re-
sponsibility Resting Upon Insur-
ance COMPLIMENTARY Duty
to His Family.

sponsibility Resting Upon Insur-
ance Companies Mans Duty
to His Family.
! Fa Rev. T. De Witt Talmage's fourth SER
non at "The Hamptons," was on an every
lay topic: "Life and Fire Insurance; the
Christian Principles Involved" His text
was:
sreys Let him appoint officers over the land and
take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in
;he seven plenteous years.-Genesis xii, a.
These were the words of Joseph, the
president of the first life insurance. COM
pany that the world ever saw. Pharaoh
had a dream that distracted him. He
thought he stood on the banks of the river
Nile, and saw coming up out of the river
sz8 seven fat, sleek, glossy cows, and they
be~-n to browse in the thick grass. Moth
s1lg frightful about that But after them,
coming out of the same river, he saw seven
asEr cows that were gaunt and starved,
and the worst looking cows that had ever
been seen in the land, and in the ferocity
of hunger they devoured their seven fat
predecessors. Pharaoh, the King, sent for
Joseph to decipher these midnight hero
glyphics. Joseph made short work of it,
andntimated that the seven cows that came
out of the river are seven years with plenty
to eat, the seven emacated cows that fol-
lowed them seven years with nothing
TO eat. ~
"Now," said Joseph, "let us take one
f- fifth of the corn crop of the seven prosper
GUS years, and keep it provision for
the seven years in which there shall be no
corn CROP"
e The King took the counsel and appointed
Joseph, because of his integrity and pub
lc-spiritedness, as the president of the un-
dertaking. The farmers paid one-fifth of
ne their income as premium In all the
tour drsts of Ian1 fho~o
fms branch houses. This great Egyptian
life insurance company had millions of
dollars as assets. After awhile the dark
Szs days came, and the whole nation would
~sss have starved if it had not been for the pro-
O. visions they had made for the future But
y now these suffering families had nothing
~ to do but to go up and collect the amount
of their policies. The Bible puts it in one
gse short phrase:
In all the land of Egypt there bread.
/ say this was the first life insurance
company. 1t was divinely organized. 1t
SO had init all the advantages Of the "whole
life plan," of the "tontine plan," of the
"reseryed endowment plan," and all the
other good plans. We are told that Rev.
DR.. Anhate, of Lincolnshire, England. ,origi-
mated the first life insurance company in
1893. No! 1t is as old as the corn-cribs of
Egypt, and God himself was the author
and originator. If that were not so I
would not take your time and mine in Sab
la bath discussion of this subject. feel it is
theme vital, religious and of infinite i'm.
port, the morals of life and fire insurance.
About ten or twelve years ago there was
great panic in life insurance, which did
good. Under the storm the Enthusiastically
~ and bogus institutions were scattered,
while the genuine were tested and firmly
established, and where does the life insur-
ance institution stand to-day? What
"a amount OF comfort, of education, of moral
and spiritual advantage is represented in
the simple statistic that in this country the
life insurance companies in one year paid
~ $7,00o,000 to the families of the bereft; and
in five years they paid $500, 900 to the
families of the bereft; and are promising
to pay-and hold themselves in readiness
to pays, 900, 000, 900 to the families of the
bereft
They have actually paid out more in
dividends and death claims than they
have ever received in premiums. know
of what speak. The life insurance COM
panies Of this country paid more than ST.
gO0O,000 OF taxes to the Government in five
years. So, instead of these companies be-
ing indebted to the land, the land is in
debted to them. To cry out against life
insurance because here and there one
company has behaved badly is as absurd
as it would be for man to burn down
100 acres of havest field in order to kill
Is the moles and potato bugs-as preposter-
GUS as man who should blow up a crowd
ed steemer in mid-Atlantic for the purpose
- of destroying the barnacles on the bottom
Vt the hulk.
- But what does the Bible say in regard to
his subject? If the Bible favors the insti-
tuition, 1 will favor it; if the Bible de-
nounces it, will denounce it, In addi-
ton to the forecast of Joseph in the text
SIS call your attention to Paul's COM
parison. Here is one man who, through
neglect, fails to support his family while
he lives, or after he dies. Here is another
man who abhor the Scriptures and rejects
God. Which of those men is the worse?
~ Well, you say, the latter. Paul says the
former. Paul says that man who neg
lects to care for his household is more OBJ
noxious than man who rejects the Script
ures
He that provideth not for his own, and espe-
cally those OF his own household, lis worse than
an infdel.
Life insurance companies helm most of us
to provide for our families after we are
gone; but, if we have the money to pay the
premiums and do not pay them, we have
no right to expect mercy at the hand of
God in the Judgment. We are worse than
Tom Paine, worse than Voltaire, and worse
- than Shaftesbury. The Bible declares it
r. we are worse than infidel.
v After the certificate of death has been
made out, and thirty or sixty days have
passed, and the officer Of life insurance
company comes into the bereft household,
and pays down the hard cash on an insur-
ance policy, that officer of the company is
performing a positively religious rite &C.
cording to the Apostle James, who says:
True religion and undeiled before God and the
Father is this: To visit the fatherless and the
widow In their affctio,.
The religion of Christ proposes to take
care OF the temporal wants of the people
ssaas well as the spiritual When Hezekiah
was dying the injunction came to him: